Yi-Fu Tuan (Traditional Chinese: 段義孚), born 5 December 1930) is a Chinese-American geographer.

Tuan was born in 1930 in Tientsin, China. He was the son of a middle-class diplomat and was part of the educated class in the then Republic of China.

Tuan attended University College, London, but graduated from the University of Oxford with a B.A. and M.A. in 1951 and 1955 respectively. From there he went to California to continue his geographic education. He received his Ph.D. in 1957 from the University of California, Berkeley.

Acclaimed cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan considers humanity's enduring desire to escape reality -- and embrace alternatives such as love, culture, and Disneyworld.

"Escapism... is not so much an argument as a tour -- sometimes a tour de force -- of cultural escapes with exotic stops and unexpected twists and turns. And such a convivial tour guide! Tuan is chatty, engaging, unpretentious and charming." -- Francis I. Kane, New York Times Book Review

"A reader could hardly ask for a more congenial guide, as Tuan's discussion ranges from Christ's last supper to chimpanzees copulating, from African bushmen barbecuing a turtle to diplomat-author Harold Nicolson bathing in a lake... Through this unusual perspective, Tuan is able to realign things usually considered opposites -- 'fantasy' and 'reality,' 'travel' and 'home,' 'work' and 'private life' -- until they converge in fruitful new combinations... His playful treatment of life's glum realities feels at times as tonic as a leisurely Sunday morning... An original work to be read for both intellectual profit and pleasure." -- Jeffery Paine, Washington Post Book World

"Writing in a deeply thoughtful style, Tuan, a leading cultural geographer, examines the wonders and atrocities that stem from the human impulse to deny the brutal realities of earthly existence." -- Utne Reader